In honor of Sunday, a visit to a church

The outside of a church.  This morning we walked to the Place de la Republique.  Two churches face each other across the east and west sides of the Place.  Eglise St-Trophime sits on the east side of the Place.  It was built in the 11th and 12th centuries.  The front of the church is intricately sculpted with lots of peculiar details to examine.

The top of Eglise St-Trophime

The doors to the church

Sheep safely grazing

A quirky little face peering over the saint's shoulder 

Lions

St. Trophime, a late-2nd/early-3rd-century Bishop of Arles
with a flying lion and flying cow

A day at the bull races

This afternoon, we attended a Camarguaise bull race event in Salin de Giraud.  Their small arena makes the experience more intimate than bigger arenas.  This is the 3rd or 4th year that we have watched the bulls in Salin de Giraud.  No bulls were harmed, and no humans were harmed.  Interesting experience.

The runners, dressed in white, try to remove string rosettes attached to the horns of the bulls, so they need to get quite close to the bull to accomplish this task.  Lots of fence jumping results (by the runners).

A trip to la Plage (the beach)

This morning, we drove down to la Plage de Piemanson.  It is a long natural beach just west of where the Grand Rhone enters the Mediterranean.

Looking east

Looking west

It was windy today, so not many people were out.  But there was one group of school kids on a field trip and a couple of old guys casually fishing with their poles wedged in the sand.  While we were there, one small fish was caught.  The guy who caught it happily mentioned that he had caught 6 and his friend had caught zero.

There were lots of lovely birds in the brackish ponds, including swans, flamingoes, small gulls (that I'm still trying to identify), shelducks, and avocets.  This area is part of the Camargue Natural Park.

Swans

Gulls

Pied Avocet

The beach is adjacent to a huge industrial salt production facility.

Always something to see

 This morning, I walked to Pont VanGogh, the re-creation of a bridge made famous as subject of one of VanGogh's paintings.

                                           

Walking through the la Roquette section of town, before I reached the river and canal paths, I found lots of green (and flowering) spaces.

A grape arbor

Cycling the Camargue

This morning, as the marine layer was lifting, we headed out to cycle along the dike road to the east of les Saintes Maries de la Mer.  Lots of recent rain had left some giant puddles along the way, but we made it to the lighthouse and back

The view (north) into one brackish channel and pond 

The view (south) to the Mediterranean

The bike trail and the lighthouse (east), our target

Lots of wildflowers

The Mediterranean nearly touches the bike trail near the newly installed riprap
(looking west)

And yes, there were flamingoes

River walk

Today, I'm only posting one photo.  I walked along the Rhone River, north to the river cruise port, and back to la Roquette.  It was lovely.  Here is a photo of the walkway along the river.

Get outside and enjoy the spring!

A few sights from today's ride

We encountered a lot of construction projects today, but I'll leave you with some other things we saw today.  

Poppies growing on a rooftop

Women rowing in the canal

Wildflowers (Marguerites?) next to the Mediterranean

Fresh piles of salt at the salt ponds.

A lovely sunny day.